Today, 61% of U.S. adults say religion is losing influence in American life, while 37% say it is gaining influence. There are sharp partisan divides on whether religion’s influence is good or bad and how far that influence should go.
Sent weekly on Wednesday
All
Publications
Nearly all Jews in the United States and Israel say they are proud to be Jewish, and strong majorities in both countries say they feel a strong sense of belonging to the Jewish people. But the two Jewish communities do not always agree about what it means to be Jewish.
The two largest organized Jewish denominations in America – Reform and Conservative Judaism – together have about five times as many U.S. members as the historically much older, more strictly observant Orthodox community. But the Reform and Conservative movements have a far smaller footprint in Israel.
As Donald Trump has racked up big wins among self-described “born-again or evangelical” Christians in many of the early primaries, some religious leaders, political analysts and researchers have questioned whether many of these self-described evangelicals actually are evangelical Christians.
Public optimism among Israeli Arabs and Jews that a two-state solution is possible may be receding in Israel.
There are only about 6 million Jews living in Israel, but there are major religious, social and political chasms that divide them.
Key takeaways from Pew Research Center’s comprehensive study of religion in Israel, where there are major divisions not only between Jews and Arabs, but also within the major subgroups of Israeli Jews.
There are deep divisions in Israeli society over political values and religion’s role in public life — not only between Jews and the Arab minority, but also among the religious subgroups that make up Israeli Jewry.
We looked at nine major religious organizations in the U.S. that both ordain women and allow them to hold top leadership slots.
Looking at the religious makeup of individual states, and at each party’s potential voters within a particular state, can help in understanding the electoral landscape.
From 1965 to 2015, more than 16 million Mexicans migrated to the U.S. in one of the largest mass migrations in modern history. But Mexican migration to the U.S. has slowed in recent years. Today, Mexico also increasingly serves as a land bridge for Central American immigrants traveling to the U.S.
Singapore is the world’s most religiously diverse country overall as of 2020, while Yemen is the least diverse. But the U.S. ranks first among nations with very large populations, followed by Nigeria and Russia.
The Catholic share of the population in several Latin American countries has shrunk over the last 10 years, while a growing percentage of Latin American adults are religiously unaffiliated.
The Christian share of the population, after years of decline, has been relatively stable since 2019. And the religiously unaffiliated population, after rising rapidly for decades, has leveled off – at least temporarily.
The Global Religious Futures (GRF) project is jointly funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts and The John Templeton Foundation. Here are some big-picture findings from the GRF, together with context from other Pew Research Center studies.
